


if you leave the light on (then i'll leave the light on)

by bucketofrice



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Lots of soul-searching, a wee bit of angst, and a happy end, passing mentions of redacted, post-pyc to summer 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-18 04:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17573945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice
Summary: The moment she realizes she doesn’tneedScott to be in every aspect of her life is liberating.





	if you leave the light on (then i'll leave the light on)

**Author's Note:**

> i blame this fic on:
> 
> \- "light on" by maggie rogers  
> \- wishfulwannabe and the diktube fic, which, for some reason, got me out of my writer's block rut  
> \- the #takebackthetag challenge  
> \- the fact that we need more fix-it, damn it, and it doesn't need to be bleak  
> \- spite  
> \- falsettodrop, because she's the best editor and cheerleader  
> \- the whole guild for being stellar humans  
> \- our favourite ice dancing idiots, because they make for great source material

They win the Olympics, and the world stops.

There is a moment—she’s between Scott and Patch in the Kiss & Cry, buzzing with adrenaline and barely managing to keep it all in—when Tessa’s life is reduced to a singularity: one perfect minute of which she wants to remember every single nanosecond. When the scores are announced in Pyeongchang, everything falls away. Her world evaporates and all that’s left are two square metres, where there are only her and Scott and the most overwhelming feeling of joy she has ever experienced. She thinks it might crack her chest in two.

And then, a fraction of a second later, she’s being lifted in the air and crushed to his chest and his hands dig into the smooth skin of her back and she latches onto him as tight as she possibly can and she thinks she’s too small a person to contain the magnitude of the love that is currently threatening to burst clean out of her body.

They did it.

They actually did it.

She is so happy and so overwhelmed and her whole body is tingling; she’s all nerves. Later, Scott will tell her that she did the laugh-cry and that it's still the best sound in the world and that he’s so proud of her that he wants to scream it from the rooftops … but for now, she just knows two things with absolute, utter certainty:

She loves Scott and they just made their wildest dreams come true.

 

_Would you believe me now_

_If I told you I got caught up in a wave?_

_Almost gave it away_

_Would you hear me out_

_If I told you I was terrified for days?_

_Thought I was gonna break_

 

The crash is hard and fast and she should have expected it.

But still, she finds herself sitting in her living room in London the week after they get home from Korea, nursing a head cold, feeling faintly numb and wondering what exactly happens now.

They had ridden the high immediately after they won, embraced the adrenaline and excitement and pure elation of it all, focusing on experiencing every single moment as fully as possible. Tessa had told Scott, when they had a rare moment to themselves and were sitting cross-legged on her bed in the Village, that she wanted to remember everything about these few weeks in full technicolour, wanted to be able to play it back like a movie whenever she chose.

He’d scoffed at that, but then she’d watched as his face softened and he took her hand and gently placed a kiss on the back of it. “Me too, kiddo,” he’d said, looking utterly awed, and she probably would’ve cried again, right then and there, if Kaitlyn hadn’t knocked on the door and ended the moment.

Scott had pulled his hand away quickly, too quickly, and she’d known that eventually, they both would need to talk about it.

Somehow, she’d managed to avoid it in Korea, on the flight back home, in London and in Ilderton, in interviews and in quiet moments shared between the two of them.

But now, as she’s sat alone on her sofa, her mind starts spinning and her breath quickens and Tessa realizes that she doesn’t know what she wants. At all.

Actually, scratch that.

She knows what she wants, but she fears it’s too complicated to explain and that it’ll just make everything messier between them. In twenty years, they’ve never been good at simple. Their relationship has escaped definition, over and over and over again. They have always been family, but never siblings, always best friends, but sometimes not friendly, always partners, but sometimes only in skating, always together, but never _together._

(Never is a loose term for the last one there, since twenty years and programs bordering on the obscene and teenage hormones and, as Marina would say _“skating like man attracted to woman, which you must make believable, make real”_ guaranteed they were left with sexual tension in spades.

And, because they’re only human, well… you get the drift.)

In twenty years, they’ve always been living inside each other’s pockets, have been terrible about maintaining boundaries, normal friendships and relationships outside one another. Tessa has vivid memories of a therapist they saw once, back in Canton, who’d labelled them as “too codependent” and tried to tell them to spend their weekends apart.

They’d told Marina they needed to switch psychologists after two sessions.

But now, after twenty years and three Olympics and more practices spent together than she could possibly count, she realizes they’re at a crossroads.

Their competitive career is over (although they won’t admit that publicly for a while), they just achieved everything they could have ever dreamed of, and, by all accounts, the world is their oyster. And Tessa is scared as hell.

The comeback was supposed to be a complete do-over.

When she and Scott decided to try for another Olympics, they weren’t just doing it for another shot at gold. (Well, that factored in, of course, but it wasn’t everything.) They were doing it for a second chance.

They were doing it for each other.

The comeback, they had decided over drinks in China on the day they climbed the Great Wall, was going to be a do-over. They would take the back half of the Sochi quad, deconstruct it entirely, pull it apart and piece it back together and do it all differently.

And so they did.

They moved coaches, moved cities, moved countries. They relearned how to skate, how to move, how to propel themselves across the ice—always forward. They collaborated, saw their coaches as equals, as partners, as mentors. They depended on one another, communicated, went to therapy. They poured every ounce of themselves into this, into each other, into eight minutes that had to count.

They didn’t do it for themselves. They did it for each other.

(What they didn’t do was this: They did not sleep together. They did not stop talking when it got hard. They did not do another wedding photoshoot, another reality show disguised as a docu-series. They did not run.)

Two years, an undefeated season, and two more Olympic medals later, they can say it with certainty: the comeback worked.

She should be celebrating; she should be having kitchen dance parties with Scott; she should be so happy that she’s floating on cloud nine.

But instead, she’s terrified.

When Scott thought about the comeback, he told her once while lying on the floor of his Montreal apartment after a run in the sticky summer heat, the planning always ended at the Olympics. That was the end, the ultimate goal, the last thing they had to do wholly differently to make it work. Everything afterward was icing on the cake, _extra_ , time they could use however they wanted. But it wasn’t the end for Tessa. Unbeknownst to him, her comeback plan extended a bit further.

The summer after Sochi was one of the worst times in her life. (It’s eclipsed only by the two months following her first surgery, where radio silence and Meryl Davis’s rumour mill and physiotherapy ruled her waking hours.) And when Tessa got the chance to do it all over again, she looked back at that summer and said _screw it._ She was going to do it all again, and she was going to do it _right,_ and that included the summer post-Olympics.

Tessa’s tea has gotten cold in the blue earthenware mug she’s still clutching in shaking hands, and she sets it down on the coaster on her coffee table. She exhales as best she can with her stuffy nose and grips the corner of her sofa like a vice.

After Sochi, they tried to talk. After Sochi, they decided everything was over. After Sochi, Scott kissed her and she was too scared so she pushed him away and then he found a curler and started drinking and she said _yes_ one too many times.

After Sochi, they couldn’t be together but they couldn’t be apart either and she felt herself splinter into a thousand little pieces and it scared her that she couldn’t put herself back together again.

They haven’t talked yet, this time.

She thinks she knows what she wants to say now, but she has no idea how to say it. She needs to prove to herself, needs to prove to _them,_ that they can be apart and also be together and finally be their own people, side by side and supporting one another. She needs this, and she knows he needs it too, but if words are failing her here, alone, on her cream-white sofa, tissues and cold tea her only company, she has no idea if she’ll ever be able to have the conversation.

She loves Scott and she doesn’t know how to tell him that without most likely breaking his heart.

 

_Oh, I couldn't stop it_

_Tried to slow it all down_

_Crying in the bathroom_

_Had to figure it out_

_With everyone around me saying_

_"You must be so happy now"_

 

Scott kisses her in her hotel room, two days before they finish Stars on Ice.

When he does it, one of his hands is cupping her cheek with the gentlest of touches and the other is cradling her skull. It’s perfect for five blissful seconds as she lets herself be swept up in the feeling, but then her brain catches up and she pulls away like she’s been burned. She doesn’t even realize tears have started streaming down her face.

She stumbles backwards out of his arms, moving frantically toward the bed, eyes open wide and limbs akimbo. She thinks that to Scott, she must look like a frightened deer, all shaky legs and hurried movements.

His face is sheer terror for half a second before it morphs abruptly into concern and every one of his features softens. He moves quickly but carefully, hands open and comforting, placating, like he’s trying to calm a spooked horse. “Kiddo, it’s okay,” he says, voice low and soothing as he makes his approach. “I didn’t mean to—”

She shakes her head when he starts apologizing because she can’t have that, not when none of this is his fault and it’s her brain that’s hung up on a technicality. She opens her mouth to try and speak but a cracked sob escapes instead and she hides her face in her hands.

When she feels his approach and he steps into her space, she lets out a deep, shuddering exhale and her shoulders sag. “Shhh,” he whispers, taking her shoulders in his hands and squeezing them gently before folding her into him. She melts into his embrace willingly, lets his warm hands and steady beating heart calm her, involuntarily syncs her breathing to his. “It’s okay, T.” He presses the gentlest of kisses to the crown of her hair and steps back only when he’s sure that she’s ready.

When she looks up at him, face tear-stained and red and blotchy, sniffling, she wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

“What happened there, hey?” He says it without any judgment, just concern and gentle affection, and she feels her heart crack in two. He’s so _good,_ and she loves him so much but she can’t do this, not now. “What’s going on in that big brain of yours?”

His attempt at levity is appreciated, and she lets out a little self-deprecating chuckle, the sound coming out raw because of all the tears. She perches on the corner of the bed, clasping her hands together and fiddling with the rings on her middle finger. Suddenly, the blue and grey carpeted floor is the most interesting thing to her, and she starts counting stripes and patterns.

Scott sits down next to her and gives her forearm a squeeze. He’s giving her space but reminding her he’s going nowhere and she’s so fucking grateful he knows exactly what she needs right now. God knows she has no idea.

She rests her head on his shoulder and they just breathe for a little while.

She certainly understands why he did what he did, why he took the leap and pressed his lips to hers, has the same vivid memories of royal blue dresses and teasing knee caresses, of synchronicity and feeling as though they were moving as one. She remembers getting closer and closer, dangerously so, until there was little more than a hair’s breadth between them.

(Also, she fake proposed to him that one time. And then he said that had happened in his dreams before. That definitely also happened.)

It makes sense why he assumed this was the path they were heading down, and she feels terrible for only having the courage to stop them now.

“When we got back from Korea,” she says, voice scarcely above a whisper, “everyone kept saying that we must be so happy.” He hums in agreement, and she soldiers on. “I was happy—I mean, I am happy, so happy.” She looks up at him through still-damp eyes, needs him to see how much she means it.

“I know.”

“I’m scared too, though.” She grabs his hand and clings on; he’s her anchor and she’s drifting out at sea. “I’m scared because I don’t know what we do when we don’t have _this—_ ” she gestures around with her free hand “—anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not going to be like this forever. We’re not training anymore, and we’ll stop touring eventually and we both know we want to end up doing different things, and—”

“Woah, woah, slow down, kiddo.” He must sense she’s spiralling, her breaths getting quicker and quicker. There’s pressure on her lungs and she takes a great, shuddering inhale. “There’s a lot that’s gonna change, but you’re still gonna be you and I’m still gonna be me and we’re still gonna have each other. That never changes.” He says it with so much certainty that she wants to believe him, wants to think that it’s all going to be okay, that they’ll figure it all out because they’re _them_ and they can do anything.

“Scott, I don’t want this to be like the last time.” _The last time—_ it’s all she has to say because the rest is implied, the feeling of being unmoored and floating without a destination in sight. She doesn’t want this to be like Sochi.

“It won’t. I promise you it won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

He sighs and scratches at the back of his neck. “I can’t be sure, Tess, we can’t be sure of anything. But we’re trying, hey? And that’s what counts.”

“I think,” she says, and then pauses, because this is the crux of it and she has to get it right, “that we shouldn’t try to be more than we are. For now at least.”

“Okay,” he says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“I don’t know if I can ever be more.” She needs to make sure he knows what she’s telling him here, that _for now_ could easily mean forever. “And I understand if that means that we can’t be what we were anymore…”

“Who says anything has to change? I’m sorry I assumed Tess, I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s okay; you couldn’t have known.”

“I love you, you know that, right?” She nods. “And I’m gonna keep loving you, in whatever way you’re comfortable with.”

“I love you too.” It’s the only thing she knows for sure.

Scott smiles and gives her hand a squeeze. “Do you wanna watch a crappy rom-com and get some chocolate from the vending machine?”

She nods and allows herself a real smile for the first time all evening. “Yeah. Yeah, I would love that.”

She loves Scott and she loves watching movies and eating chocolate in nondescript hotel rooms with her best friend at her side.

 

_Oh, if you keep reaching out_

_Then I'll keep coming back_

_And if you're gone for good_

_Then I'm okay with that_

_If you leave the light on_

_Then I'll leave the light on_

 

When she books the shoot for Vogue Japan, the first person she tells is Jeff.

(She wants to tell Scott first, but he’s nowhere to be found and Jeff is _right there_ in the hotel breakfast bar and he’s one of her oldest friends and she’s bursting at the seams and she has to tell someone. So she does, and she flips out with him and they can’t stop babbling but it’s not _Scott_ and she knows she won’t be able to process this until she tells him.)

Half an hour later, Scott returns to the hotel after an early morning run, sweating and panting, shirt clinging to his torso and hair mussed. He’s forgone the gel and she stifles a laugh; it’s something she won’t stop teasing him about and their friends have bets riding on when exactly he’ll give in and cut it.

He spots her and his face breaks out into a huge grin—as it’s prone to do whenever she’s around. Kaetlyn just shakes her head from a corner and Tessa shoots her a glare. She _knows_ what it looks like, the way they gravitate toward each other, like magnets finding their opposite poles, but she doesn’t care.

“T! You’ve joined the land of the living!” He takes three quick strides toward her and makes a motion to wrap her in a bear hug. She lets out a squeal and ducks, trying her best to evade him in his sweaty state and pretty soon they’re both laughing and behaving like children, not the near-thirty-year-olds they really are.

“You guys are entirely too much,” Jeff says, and Tessa sticks her tongue out at him because she is definitely a classy, adult person.

When she follows Scott to the breakfast buffet and watches him load up on eggs and bacon, she shakes her head as he carefully selects two strawberries and three grapes to complete his meal.

“What’s up, Virtch?” he asks, because he knows she’s eaten and yet she’s been standing next to the food, watching him.

“I need to tell you something,” she says, and he turns to her, expectant. “Can I talk to you upstairs when you’ve showered?”

“Yeah, for sure.” He presses a quick kiss to her temple and heads in search of some toast.

Forty-five minutes later, she’s perched on his bed and waiting for him to finish putting that damn gel back in his hair. He smooths it out and checks himself in the mirror one more time and if she were less keyed-up she’d laugh at his antics.

He turns to her with an expectant smile. “Shoot.”

“I got the cover shoot with Vogue Japan,” she blurts out, and she thinks the grin that spreads across Scott’s face is rivalled only by the one he sported right after their skate in Korea. Immediately, he wraps her up in his arms and spins her around the room and they’re both breathless and giggling as they fall back on the bed in a tangle of limbs.

“I’m so proud of you,” Scott says, squeezing her hand, and Tessa feels her chest constrict under his adoring gaze.

Three days later, she’s in Tokyo, posing in front of a grey backdrop, trying her best to mask the fact that she’s nervous beyond belief. This is Vogue, and she’s going to be on the cover, and she thinks if she were to tell thirteen-year-old Tessa all about it she’d tell her she was absolutely nuts.

There’s a rack full of clothing set up for her, and she’s currently wearing a silk blouse and skirt combination, the price of which she doesn’t even dare guess. They’re doing lighting tests, setting up angles and flashes and other equipment, and she’s having a hard time keeping up, listening intently for any English filtering in amidst whispers in hurried Japanese.

As the shoot progresses, she becomes more comfortable, loosening up and getting more playful with the poses. She’s in a wispy black dress that makes her feel like a witch, the music to Roxanne is playing in the background and she’s channelling her inner badass when she hears a wolf whistle from the other side of the studio.

Her head snaps up and she’s confused until she spots him: Scott, standing behind a big light, wearing the dotted shirt she told him to buy after the Saffron Road shoot in the spring. He’s smiling fondly and he gives her a little wave and her heart does a somersault in her chest. He really is the best best friend ever.

Unsurprisingly, everyone at the shoot thinks they’re dating. And that Scott is just _the best_ _boyfriend ever_ for taking the unfamiliar train system for an hour to surprise her. She smiles and chuckles at that, because yes, he is the best person ever—but he’s not her boyfriend. He’s just her Scott.

He keeps quiet for the remainder of the shoot, save for the silly looks he sends her way when he catches her attention. She smiles at him and rolls her eyes fondly. When they finish with pictures and the interview, the photographer has her come over to look at the preliminary proofs of the pictures. Scott follows and stands right at her side. They ask her which ones she likes best and after she appraises a few, she feels Scott nudge her gently.

She looks over and cocks an eyebrow. “Thoughts?”

He smiles a shy smile and points to a photo. “Yeah, actually.”

Later, as she’s grabbing her stuff to leave, he walks over and whispers, “take the red boots with you,” in her ear. She jabs him in the shoulder for it. “Seriously! Wear those and you’ll have any guy—or girl—on their knees. I’m obligated as your best friend to tell you that they’re fucking hot.” She snorts. “You’re like Queen T on her throne in those things.”

“You’re a dork.”

“I speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.”

She eyes him again. “Dork.”

He chuckles and pulls her into a half hug as they walk out of the studio, boots left behind (she had looked at the price tag before she tried them on for the pictures and felt mildly nauseous, so keeping them was out of the question). As they step out into the warm evening air, she thinks this is so _easy_ , being his best friend and having him as the rock by her side. She can’t believe she got so lucky.

She loves Scott and she loves that he took an hour-long train ride through Japan just to be by her side.

 

_And I am finding out_

_There's just no other way_

_That I'm still dancing at the end of the day_

_If you leave the light on_

_Then I'll leave the light on_

 

It’s late summer when things change again.

There’s a lull between the shows overseas and tour planning and the start of practices, and they don’t see each other constantly. He’s in Ilderton, she’s got France and Mexico, and it’s a whirlwind few weeks until they’re finally back in the same place again.

They’re in her dining room in London, working out last-minute tour logistics, and Scott has just brought the Thai food they ordered in from the kitchen.

He sets the boxes down beside them, careful to avoid her laptop and binders and she shoots him a grateful look. He smiles, but he looks like he’s steeling himself for something. “What’s going on?” she asks, as she opens the lid to her green curry.

He clears his throat. “I, uh, I started seeing someone. When you were away and stuff.” He scratches at the back of his neck awkwardly and there’s a flush creeping up his neck. “I know what you said back in May, but I wanted to let you know, so it’s not a surprise—”

“Hey, I’m happy for you, you deserve it,” she says, and she means it. She was the one who made everything vague and truthfully, she still doesn’t know if she’ll ever want their relationship to be more—to slip back into that codependency that was, in hindsight, often not the healthiest.

Scott lets out a breath and smiles at her and she reaches over to squeeze his hand. “Thanks, T, that means a lot.”

“So,” she says, whilst assembling a forkful of rice and curry. “Do I know her?”

(Tessa Virtue has never claimed to be a perfect person, never claimed to always tread the moral high ground. People are flawed, she knows, and she believes very much in the fact that everyone learns and grows and evolves as a person, and that you don’t have to be perfect to be fundamentally good.

So sue her if, after Scott leaves her house that evening, she sits down on the sofa and lets out a disbelieving cackle. _Of all the people in the world,_ she thinks, _it had to be her._ She’s not blind to the irony of it all, to the big flashing sign from the universe. But, in a way, it wouldn’t be a Tessa and Scott story without some weird quirk to the whole thing. And this time, apparently, it’s the fact that Scott is seeing his former skating partner—but not _that_ one.)

They spend the rest of the summer planning, and Scott tells her more about the girl he’s seeing, and pretty soon, October rolls around. With it starts the tour, and it’s a dream come true.

It’s all the things they love about their sport, and want to give back to Canada, and it’s just so much _fun_. She’ll never get tired of the feeling, she thinks, of taking the ice with her best friend and letting everything slip away. The ice is where they’ve always made the most sense, where nothing is complicated and they’re at their rawest; it’s where she feels bare and whole and exposed and protected all at once.

It’s home, and it’s home with Scott, in the crook of his neck or the safety of a dance hold. It’s theirs, and only theirs.

It was a bit of a prolonged high, she thinks fondly, after it’s all over and she’s back home, recovering from yet another head cold. She’s pretty sure it’s her body’s way of getting back at her, and to be honest, she can’t blame it.

She envies Scott in these moments, because he never seems to get sick quite like she does and he’s currently somewhere sunny, his feet in the sand and a cold beer in his hand. She looks at the flurries outside and shivers. As much as she wishes he weren’t getting a tan right now, she knows he needs it—they both do.

They have a less-than-stellar track record when it comes to outside relationships (both as the one in them and the other, observing from a distance) and this feels like another step in the right direction, another checkpoint for her full do-over. They’re being adults, in a healthy adult relationship, and she thinks they deserve a pat on the back for it.

She tells Scott as much when he’s back, right around the holidays, and they’re side-by-side on her sofa, watching Elf and eating popcorn.

“Wha—?” he says, voice muffled. He’s trying not to let stray kernels fall on her upholstery.

“I said…” She fixes him with a glare and he sits further upright and sets the bowl down. “... that we’re doing great at this whole, ‘being best friends but our own people’ thing. It’s nice.”

He hums in assent and raises his hand. “High five, Virtch?”

She giggles and acquiesces. “So adult of you, Moir.”

“We’re killing the whole retirement thing,” he says, a shit-eating grin on his face. He absolutely should have expected the resulting pillow to the face.

“Banned word!” she exclaims. “You do _not_ get to say that. It’s bad luck!”

He just starts laughing and she’s still pouting and she’s determined to out-stare him but he’s quicker, lunging over to tickle her sides. Okay, she thinks, as she tries her best to get him in a headlock, they might be adults about _certain things._ The important ones at least.

When they’re both out of breath and have mutually surrendered, they rearrange the blankets and she rests her head on his shoulder. “Love you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her hair. “So lucky I got ya.”

She smiles. “Love you too. And same.”

On TV, Will Ferrell learns about the cynicism of the human world. Tessa just snuggles herself further into Scott’s side.

She loves Scott and she’s so happy she can still do that when there’s someone else at his side.

 

_And do you believe me now_

_That I always had the best intentions, babe?_

_Always wanted to stay_

_Can you feel me now_

_That I'm vulnerable in oh-so-many ways?_

_Oh, and I'll never change_

 

The moment she realizes she doesn’t need Scott to be in every aspect of her life is liberating.

The moment she realizes she _wants_ him in it though, that moment is everything.

It’s June, they’re done with Great Kitchen Party trips and back into the slog of tour planning. Save for her sponsor commitments, Tessa’s brain feels like one giant spreadsheet. All they’ve done in the past week is plan, plan, plan, and it’s exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.

Scott has started to stay over in her guest bedroom sometimes—his house is nearly done, but not quite—to save himself the drive back to Ilderton, and in lots of ways, this feels a bit like the comeback again. It’s like they’re back in their bubble of two, but this time, it’s natural; there’s no single-minded goal hanging above them.

They’re also both single again (and in the end, long-distance wasn’t feasible and Scott’s relationship is now in the past), but neither of them have really addressed it. Instead, they’re existing in this odd sort of symbiosis that has defined their relationship for the past two decades.

It’s comfortable and safe and _simple._

He’s in her kitchen washing dishes and she’s putting away the placemats and mentally running through the things they both still need to catch up on on Netflix. Scott shouts about what wine she wants and she tells him to pick for her and when she leaves the dining room to head to her couch, thinking that she wouldn’t mind doing this every night, she stops dead in her tracks.

Well shit.

Mike Babcock might have been right after all.

“What’cha got picked out for tonight?” Scott says breezily as he walks past her, two glasses of red in his hands. She follows him on instinct, perches daintily on her sofa after he plops himself down in his regular spot.

“I love you,” she says, because it feels necessary right now. They’ve said it a thousand times, in a thousand different ways.

“Love you too,” he says back, as if on instinct, not pausing as he grabs the remote and leans back, and then, “we should really finish that one season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

“Scott.” He stops what he’s doing and turns to face her. “We’re not coming back to competitive skating again.”

He looks so confused. “Yeah, we agreed Korea would be the last thing. T, if you’re trying to come back then I gotta warn ya, I’ve only gotten older.”

She shakes her head. “No, no. I know that. It’s just—” words are failing her and it’s so uncharacteristic, but she powers through. “I was so scared that it would be Sochi again. The comeback was _everything,_ Scott, and I was terrified the crash would be even worse this time.” She can see the concern building in his features and he scoots toward her, taking a hand in his.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, because she’s pretty sure tears are forming in the corners of her eyes and he can see them and God, she has to explain herself better.

“But it wasn’t, see? We’re here, and we’re doing so well, and we’ve got the tour and I’m gonna go back to school and you’re gonna coach and we’ve got all these plans—alone and together.”

He nods, squeezes her hand once, twice, thrice.

“When you kissed me, last year, I was so scared. I was scared of needing you, of us not being able to be our own people. And it was stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid, T,” he says, “I was scared too.”

She lets out a little laugh, but it’s mixed with a sob and she sniffles. “That’s reassuring to hear.” He chuckles. “And I realized, over this past year, that I don’t _need_ you.” He freezes, and there’s a flash of panic in his eyes but she barrells on. “I don’t need you in every part of my life, Scott, and you don’t need me in every part of yours. But I … I _want_ you there.”

His whole face changes, softening; his eyes widen and he grips her hands tighter.

“You want me in every part of your life?”

She nods, because she’s fighting back tears in earnest now. “Do you want me in yours?”

He lets out a little disbelieving chuckle and lets go of one of her hands to wipe a tear off her cheek. “Tessa Jane, I will _always_ want you in my life. That shouldn’t even be a question.”

She’s definitely crying now, and he is too, but then he leans in and brushes his lips to hers and her reaction is instant. She winds her hands around his neck and pulls him closer, closer, closer, as his hands latch onto her back. He kisses like he skates, with full-bodied enthusiasm, all teeth and tongue, and she melts into it.

The last thought she has before all coherency flies out the window is the one thing she knows, with certainty, always.

She loves Scott. It’s that simple.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me here, in comments, or on [tumblr](http://good-things-come-in-threes.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/_bucketofrice).


End file.
